an excerpt from my writing notebook:
"all blood had left his face, leaving him pale and clean and smelling faintly of ash. he was dry, his hair tousled and mussed from sleep. surprisingly, a faint streak of blonde hair had begun to thread through his forelock, which looked eerie and plasticky. ptara gently pressed a hand to his soft cheek, feeling the coldness; it was true. he had died. his heart monitor no longer whirred, the paper no longer rolling on its spool, instead hanging from the roll like a pitiful flag of death. but despite this, despite his heart no longer beating, his lungs no longer filling with blood rather than oxygen -- his arm twitched. ptara's eyes widened before she calmed again - however much she could - and just told herself it was simply a postmortem hypnic jerk. he did it again. then a third, fourth, fifth time. his mouth opened at one side, closed. the other side opened, closed. his mouth was filled with blood, so black it was blue. his long black eyelashes fluttered, before it opened. his singular eye, of course. the other one was long, long gone. his pupil had completely swallowed his iris, and his whites were almost eclipsed by the solid black, black, black. they reflected the horrid light of the room - the stinging, mismatched fluorescents - like the eyes of a cat."